Michael Jackson messed up his iconic moonwalk at ‘Motown 25’.
The late King of Pop – who died in 2009 at the age of 50 – famously executed the popping dance move during the ‘Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever’ special in 1983 but now Shalamar star Jeffrey Daniel has recalled that it didn’t quite work out how the singer wanted it to.
Asked how long it took Michael to master the dance, Jeffrey told ContactMusic: “That I can’t answer because I first showed him in 1980. He did it publicly in 1983. Now that doesn’t mean to say that it took him three years to learn it. He may have been just waiting for the perfect opportunity to exhibit the dance.
“I was at the Motown 25th anniversary, I was in the audience. Here’s the funny thing about it; no one knew that was going to happen.
“He did ‘Billie Jean’, he did about three scoots into the spin and landed on his toes.
“When the performance was over, I went over to him and said, ‘Wow, Michael, you did it.’ He said, ‘Yeah, but it didn’t work out the way I wanted it to.’ I said, ‘Bro, whatever you did out there, you killed the audience.’
The dance move went on to become symbiotic with Michael throughout his music career but Jeffrey noted that when it was first performed, those around him in the audience were shocked because it was “his thing” to start with.
He added: “But let me tell you what the funny thing was when Michael did that backslide for the first time on that stage, the audience jumped up.
“But the people who I knew looked at me because it was like, ‘Michael’s doing your thing.'”